Eli Erlick presents BEFORE GENDER

Registration for this event is not required; however, in the case of a full event, your registration will reserve your seat.

Join us on Friday, February 20, in Remington for a conversation between writers Eli Erlick and Rahne Alexander. They will discuss Erlick's new book Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950.

About Before Gender:

Explore the trailblazing lives of 30 trans people who radically change everything you’ve been told about transgender history

Highlighting influential individuals from 1850-1950 who are all but unknown today, Eli Erlick shares 30 remarkable stories from romance to rebellion and mystery to M**der. These narratives chronicle the grit, joy, and survival of trans people long before gender became an everyday term.

Organized into 4 parts paralleling today’s controversies over gender identity (kids, activists, workers, and athletes), Before Gender introduces figures whose forgotten stories transform the discussion

• Mark and David Ferrow, two of the first trans teens to access gender-affirming medical treatment following overwhelming support from their friends, family, and neighbors.
• Gerda von Zobeltitz, a trans countess who instigated an LGBTQ+ riot 40 years before Stonewall.
• Frank Williams, a young trans man who was fired from over a dozen jobs for his gender.
• Frances Anderson, the world’s greatest female billiards player of the 1910s.

Bold and visionary, Erlick’s debut uncovers these lost stories from the depths of the archives to narrate trans lives in a way that has never been attempted before.

Before Gender is available for purchase here!

Eli Erlick is aninternationally awarded author, activist, and educator. Her book, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950 (Beacon Press/Manchester University Press, 2025), uncovers thirty trans narratives that radically disrupt popular ideas about transgender people. Her forthcoming book, Belonging Through Exclusion: Understanding the Transgender Far Right (University of Chicago Press, 2026), explores why right-wing transgender people adopt their views and what we can do to prevent others from joining them. She recently completed her PhD in Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently the program director of the New York City Trans Archives, the largest transgender archive in the Eastern United States.

Rahne Alexander is an intermedia artist and writer from Baltimore. She was probably out as trans before you were.

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